Puddin'(7)

Mama sighs. “How were the girls looking this morning?” she asks.

I nod. “It wasn’t bad. We’re going to start meeting after school next week to gear up for State.”

She taps a pen to her lips. “Is that going to interfere with your work schedule?”

I prop up my elbows on her desk and rest my chin in my hands. “It’ll be tight, but it’s just for two weeks. And everyone at work is cool about dance stuff.”

She licks the pad of her pointer finger before flipping through attendance sheets. “And what about homework? You won’t be leaving much time for Bryce either.”

“I’ll make it work with homework, and Bryce will see me when he sees me. It’s not like he stresses out about fitting me into his schedule during football season.”

“That’s my girl.” She hands me a stack of late slips to stamp. “I’m gonna get with some of the parents and Principal Armstrong about arranging a fan bus down to State. We got to be sure to decorate y’all’s bus, too, with shoe polish and whatnot.”

My smother would be the ideal candidate for faculty adviser, but seeing as she’s the school secretary and not an actual teacher, her level of involvement is limited to enthused parent. Which is for the best, I guess. Between my stepdad, my sister Kyla, trying to keep tabs on Claudia from halfway across the world, and her job, the woman barely has a moment to shower. I can see her age showing, too, but maybe that’s just ’cause I remember what she looked like when it was just me, my dad, Claudia, and her.

When I think of her then, I remember her black high-waisted jeans and her thick black belt with its shiny silver buckle and her tight, lacy tank tops. She was like the West Texas version of Olivia Newton-John’s Bad Sandy from Grease. She’d swivel her hips across the kitchen—which always smelled more like her DIY perm than any food we ate—to old Selena songs while my dad made horrible bachelor-type food for us, like hot dogs wrapped in tortillas.

Now the only self-imposed requirements of my mama’s wardrobe is that it “drapes nicely” and covers up any lumps or rolls she’s found herself with over the last few years. The lipstick, though, still remains.

She presses her fingers to my forehead, massaging my furrowed brow away. “You’re gonna need to start using my antiaging cream if you keep wrinkling up your forehead like that. Now tell me what’s got you so worried.”

I look over my shoulder and beyond her where students wait to be seen by the principal, vice principal, or guidance counselor. “Well,” I say quietly, “shit’s sorta hitting the fan. It looks like the dance team lost one of our major sponsors, and now we’re pretty much screwed. We’re gonna have to do a few emergency fund-raisers before State, but there’s definitely not any money for Nationals.”

She tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “Oh, goodness. Well, that just won’t do. What’d Mrs. Driskil say?”

I roll my eyes.

She shakes her head firmly. “That woman’s more useless than fuzz on a peach,” she whispers, tapping her red-painted pointer fingernail against her chin. “Mama’s gonna get you in to see Vice Principal Benavidez. Y’all girls have worked too hard for some silly little money to stand in your way. And Lord knows most of us can’t just spring for a trip to San Francisco.”

I bite down on my lower lip to stop myself from smiling. I can see her going into full-on Mama Bear mode, referring to herself in the third person. I know there’s not much she can actually do other than make the vice principal have a sit-down with me, but there’s something about seeing an adult actually try that makes me feel better. Even if it’s only momentarily. And if I can solve this problem on my own, Sam will have no choice but to name me captain.

“Thanks, Mama.” Before I get to work on picking up attendance sheets, I dig through her desk drawer for a makeup wipe to scrub away the lip print on my cheek. She may have her nose in every corner of my life, but sometimes having a smother isn’t all that bad.





Millie


Three


At lunch, Amanda and I sit in the courtyard at our usual table while she devours the Amy Poehler autobiography I lent her—or I guess I should more accurately say I rehomed it, since my mother was not too pleased when she cracked it open and got an eyeful of some of Ms. Poehler’s language. Amanda chuckles to herself every few minutes, and it takes everything in me not to ask what part she’s reading.

As my eyes roam the courtyard, I spy Willowdean peeking her head out the door and waving frantically. Following her gaze, I find Bo, her boyfriend. Her very cute boyfriend with—as Amanda puts it—a peach butt. Just the thought of a boy’s behind has me blushing.

Will’s eyes sweep the rest of the courtyard, and she waves at Amanda and me before ducking back into the building. I wave back and make a note to myself to talk to Willowdean about my current . . . situation. I’m hungry for any type of advice that will move me from Crush Corner to Boyfriend Boardwalk. (Surely I’m not the only person who imagines life in terms of board games like Monopoly or Candy Land.)

See? This is why I need to talk to Willowdean. I’m going bananas here.

But our opportunities to chat are sadly limited. I wish Willowdean, Ellen, and Hannah at least shared a lunch period with me and Amanda. That’d be a good excuse to see them.